


and now for something completely different

by beautify



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Kuroo Tetsurou Is A Cat, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 07:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15359670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautify/pseuds/beautify
Summary: “I don’t approve of this,” Tsukishima tells Kuroo, who is no longer small and soft and cute, but six feet tall and naked and in Tsukishima’s bed, where he wasn’t allowed before and certainly isn’t allowed now.





	and now for something completely different

**Author's Note:**

  * For [groundcover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/groundcover/gifts).



> ft. tsukishima kei's wildly underwhelming reaction to his cat of twelve years turning into a fucking dude? and my very mixed feelings
> 
> based off [this art](https://twitter.com/subbback/status/770648715258232832) but for the most part this is sarah's fault

Obviously Kuroo just wakes up one day and decides he doesn’t want to be a cat anymore, because he’s sick and tired, probably, of being lorded over by doorknobs and empty food bowls and laser pointers. This is less than ideal for Tsukishima, who doesn’t really have time to teach Kuroo basic human decency in the most literal sense, except that a monsoon hit Miyagi a few days ago and it’s raining something awful, so actually as it turns out, Tsukishima has nothing better to do.

“I don’t approve of this,” Tsukishima tells Kuroo, who is no longer small and soft and cute, but six feet tall and naked and in Tsukishima’s bed, where he wasn’t allowed before and certainly isn’t allowed now.

“Hey, stranger,” Kuroo purrs.

“Bad cat,” Tsukishima says, scowling, trying to push him off the bed with his foot. “Bad Kuroo. Stop that.”

Kuroo sticks his tongue out at him, which is not the cute pink cat tongue that Tsukishima once found a little bit cute (blep!) and then rolls off the bed and strolls out into the living room. Tsukishima watches him go. And then he rolls over, buries his face in his pillow, and tries to forget about it.

 

*

 

Tsukishima doesn’t quite manage to forget about it because fifteen minutes later Kuroo comes back in and starts kicking up a fuss about being fed, which is sort of confusing to Tsukishima because what is Kuroo going to eat? Kibble? It’s unlikely.

“What do you even _want_ ,” Tsukishima says, brows knitted. He feels a pounding headache coming on.

“That’s a good question,” Kuroo says. “I’ll have whatever you have.”

“I’m not having anything,” Tsukishima tells him, and then pulls his blanket over his head.

“That’s fine,” Kuroo says, all breezy, and starts climbing onto the bed, “I’ll just stay here with you until you do.”

Never mind, Tsukishima thinks. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

 

*

 

Tsukishima almost sends Yamaguchi a picture of Kuroo’s new look, but then he reconsiders. Kuroo is kind of — well. Tsukishima’s got him wearing clothes now, but Kuroo is broad in the shoulders, for some reason, even though he was a pretty slinky cat, and Tsukishima is pretty sure that Kuroo is undoing to his clothes what the washing machine did.

“Did I do something wrong?” Tsukishima asks, in all seriousness, chin in hand as he watches Kuroo eat his steak (steak! Tsukishima’s really pulling out all the stops here; this isn’t America, steak doesn’t grow on trees) in tiny little pieces like he hasn’t yet realised he has a big boy mouth now. “Do you not like being my cat?”

Kuroo makes a disappointed face at him. “I am my own cat, Tsukishima Kei,” he says sagely.

Tsukishima blinks slowly. He’s had Kuroo since he was ten years old. Cat years are a nebulous concept but he even remembers biking to conbinis on his dumb little bike with dumb training wheels and a dumb basket with Kuroo in it. Kuroo is absolutely his cat — maybe not the thing he would run into the fire for, but at the very least the thing he would make a PA for at a shopping mall.

Anyway, Kuroo was a bad cat before but he’s an even worse human, and now that he has an extra eight hours in the day he spends most of it preening in the mirror, running his fingers through his hair and actually completely ignoring Tsukishima as long as he knows that Tsukishima isn’t ignoring him. So it’s not much different from before, really, except that if Kuroo is being a bother Tsukishima can’t exactly pick him up by the scruff of his neck and put him in the corner.

And Kuroo is a bother all the time. Kuroo loves being a bother. Bothering Tsukishima is what Kuroo lives for.

“I want to go out,” Kuroo announces. “I want to see the world.” He points a finger at Tsukishima. “You can’t keep me locked up in here, you horrible, horrible man. I’m not your prisoner anymore.”

Tsukishima takes a slow, deep breath. When Kuroo was a cat he left the apartment all the time, feckless as he was, not caring if Tsukishima worried about him getting hit by a car or getting lost or tumbling into some feline love affair.

“Kuroo,” he says, “you just. Turn the doorknob. With your hand.”

“I mean I want you to take me somewhere,” Kuroo says, frowning.

He really does sound a little bit upset, so Tsukishima rubs his temples and sighs and then says, finally, “We’ll go for a walk,” even though he has work to catch up on and it’s raining outside and it’s the middle of the night.

He almost doesn’t bother changing out of his sweats, but then he thinks that if someone sees him with Kuroo, he doesn’t want to look like a mess by his side. So he puts on some real pants and ties up his shoes and even brushes his hair, but then when he goes to stand by the door with the umbrella ready, Kuroo flops onto the sofa and tells Tsukishima that he’s changed his mind.

“I don’t want to get wet,” he says.

“You won’t get wet,” Tsukishima says, through gritted teeth, even though Kuroo absolutely will get wet, not only because there’s a monsoon tearing through the whole prefecture right now but also because Tsukishima is ready to trip Kuroo in a puddle the moment the opportunity presents itself. “We have an umbrella.”

“I’m tired,” Kuroo says, closing his eyes. “You can go by yourself.”

Why wouldn’t Tsukishima want to go on a walk, by himself, in the middle of the night when it’s thundering. He loves that sort of thing. But for some reason he doesn’t go. He drops the umbrella and kicks off his shoes and storms back into the bedroom and locks the door, so he can sulk and feel meanly pleased when Kuroo starts pawing at the door and whining to be let in.

The next morning Tsukishima finds Kuroo sitting in the kitchen and looking dour as he eats a banana.

“Why do you look like that?” Tsukishima asks suspiciously, one hand on his hip. When Kuroo narrows his eyes at him and says nothing, just takes another sullen bite of his banana, Tsukishima huffs and brushes past him to get to the milk. Whatever this is, he thinks, it’s not his problem.

 

*

 

True to his cat self, Kuroo spends the whole day stalking around the apartment, acting standoffish and pretending Tsukishima doesn’t exist — and then at the end of the night, when it’s drizzling outside and Tsukishima is sitting on the sofa, half listening to raindrops fall on all the plants outside and half watching a nature documentary, Kuroo limps over to him and sprawls out on the sofa so his head is in Tsukishima’s lap, and then bats his lashes slowly and sweetly at Tsukishima, which makes Tsukishima’s face warm now in a way it didn’t before.

Once he’s recovered, Tsukishima raises his eyebrows and says, “So are you done?”

Kuroo doesn’t deign to respond to him. Instead he looks over at the TV, where a puma is tending to her cubs, and says, “Hey, I used to look like that.”

“Yes, you were a dead ringer,” Tsukishima says dryly, and — more out of habit than anything else — starts carding his fingers through Kuroo’s hair. Kuroo leans up and nips his wrist; Tsukishima smacks him gently on the nose.

After a moment, with his eyes still trained on the TV, Tsukishima says, “I miss when you were small.”

“Me too,” Kuroo says.

Tsukishima knits his brows. He thought Kuroo wanted to be like this, even if he thought it was only for a little while. “You miss being a cat?”

“No,” Kuroo says, “I mean I miss when you were small, too.”

“…Ugh,” Tsukishima says, softly.

“You always gave me your dinner.” Kuroo puffs. “You never do that anymore.”

Tsukishima tightens his fingers in Kuroo’s hair. “You were getting fat.”

“So were you,” Kuroo says, grinning, and then turns his head and bites Tsukishima’s knee through his sweats like the apex predator that he is. “I was just helping.”

 

*

 

The storm eventually passes, meaning classes are back on and Tsukishima has to leave Kuroo alone in the apartment, which seems awfully dubious to Tsukishima when Kuroo’s in this state.

“Will you be fine for a few hours?” Tsukishima asks, kneeling down to tie his laces.

“Sure,” Kuroo says, not sounding sure at all and in fact looking very agitated, like the moment Tsukishima leaves he’ll have a tantrum and start throwing furniture out the window from twenty storeys up. “You go ahead. I’ll just stay here.”

“Do that.”

“And wait for you to come back.”

“Good boy.”

“Do you really have to go?” Kuroo says, arms folded over his chest.

“You know there’s nothing I want more than to sit here all day and play with your hair,” Tsukishima says, “except for a degree.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Kuroo says, scowling.

“Bye-bye, kitty,” Tsukishima singsongs, rolling his eyes, and then he’s out the door and on his way.

 

*

 

Six hours later, Tsukishima comes home to all his furniture rearranged, all his clothes on the floor, a flooded bathroom, and a very familiar black cat sitting in a pool of sunlight on the floor of his apartment.

“Kuroo,” Tsukishima says, picking Kuroo up and shaking him awake. “What do you call this? Turn back right now and tell me.”

Kuroo yawns. Alright, Tsukishima thinks, bundling Kuroo into his arms and watching in disgust as Kuroo starts licking himself clean. So that’s how it’s going to be.

**Author's Note:**

> and then kuroo gets thrown in a dumpster!


End file.
